Buh-Bye MobileMe — iCloud Rules Now

While folks like to talk about Google’s many failed properties, one that stands out for Apple is MobileMe. Well, Apple’s troubled child is no more as of Monday — Apple’s new golden boy, iCloud, is all things cloud at Apple now, and includes many of MobileMe’s features.

MobileMe has been one of Apple’s least successful product endeavors. The 2008 launch of the service was marked by numerous bugs, as well as an e-mail blackout for thousands of subscribers. The release went so poorly, in fact, that critics started calling it “MobileMess.” Perhaps the worst criticism came from former CEO Steve Jobs himself. According to Fortune, Jobs reportedly gathered the MobileMe team together shortly after the product launch, asking “Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” When he got a reply, he said, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”

Ouch. But the transition to iCloud — including the 20GB free teaser to get them over earlier rather than later — has also not been without bumps in the road:

The transition from MobileMe to iCloud has also been rough for many users. iCloud, whose purpose is largely to unify and sync storage across iOS and Mac devices, is actually the fourth incarnation of web-based storage clients for Apple. In 2000, iTools was a free option for Mac users, which was replaced by subscription-only .Mac in mid 2002. .Mac gave way to MobileMe in 2008, which has since been replaced by iCloud.